


A Lack of Food

by fuzzybooks



Category: The Hobbit (2012)
Genre: AU ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Starvation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzybooks/pseuds/fuzzybooks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a prompt that wanted Bilbo's starvation, eating 1-2 meals instead of Hobbits' 7, sparking some bad memories in the older dwarves that know what it's like to starve and how hard it is to reverse the effects, especially with their limited supplies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Lack of Food

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:  
> Based on a couple prompts where the Dwarfs realize that Bilbo isn't eating enough (1-2 or 3 meals vs a normal 7).
> 
> Now, take into account the fact that most, if not all, of them (disregarding our youngest) wandered in exile for years, taking jobs where they could. What do you bet they had to beg at times? Or to go with little or no food for days? Hundred bucks says Thorin (at least) was constantly giving up his share of food for his sister/family/people.
> 
> In conclusion, I'd like to see a fic where Bilbo's unintentional starvation sparks some very bad memories for the older dwarfs, and their horror is partially fed by the fact that they KNOW what starvation does to you, and how hard it is to reverse its affects (especially when your food sources are limited).
> 
> Bonus: Fili and Kili (and Ori) don't get it, at all.
> 
> Double Bonus: They insist on staying with Beorn/Elrond (whenever you choose to set it) until Bilbo's recovered, even if it takes months.
> 
> http://hobbit-kink.livejournal.com/5346.html?thread=10878434#t10878434

They didn’t know at first, how could they have? They knew very little about hobbits after all, but they were horrified at learning that they had at least of seven meals per day, as a minimum. Because looking at their meagre rations they knew that Bilbo Baggins had been getting by on far less than he should have been, which among the older dwarves awakened memories they would rather not think of again.

Days, and nights, spent not knowing where the next meal was coming from, or if it would come at all. Of reserves being used up, far faster than they could be replenished. Stomachs grumbling and being so tired and weak. Of having so little and giving it all up for the sake of the children, stooping to begging because the hunger would take their young ones if they didn’t. Would take them.

They had done wrong by Bilbo Baggins, he who had run out his door, nearly died to defend them, their king and to help them reclaim a kingdom, a home, that he had no relation to, no memory of, and nothing tying him to their, or it’s fate.

They could only watch as he grew thinner, how he lost the softness they had seen in hobbits, and lost his pallor and appetite. How he stopped complaining about the lack of food, and ate what he was given. He was fading away and there was little they could do about it.

They had, in the time since they realised, lost their packs, they had barely been able to scavenge nuts and berries to add, and if it weren’t for them already having reached the Misty Mountains, Balin and Bifur would have made Thorin turn around, as it was, there was no way to go but forward. And then they lost the aforementioned packs and what little they had tried to do to help was for naught.

Few meals turned to no meals at all, and it all came to a head when Bilbo fainted two days after they had been dropped off on the Carrock, as Gandalf said it was named, and then Gandalf had run off. Leaving them stranded and starved and absolutely devastated.

The younger dwarves didn’t quite understand, and they hadn’t stopped complaining about the loss of their packs, they were too young to remember what life had been like before they had managed to settle in well enough in the Blue Mountains, too young to remember, to sheltered to truly have experienced it.

When Gandalf came back it was to many a stone-faced dwarf and he took them to a “friend” he knew, a few dwarves at a time. Balin and Dwalin, Óin and Glóin, Bifur, Bofur and Bombur, Dori and Nori had all gone to talk to Thorin. They could not in good conscience leave until Bilbo was fully recovered.

He was their friend, he was their burglar, they were the reason he was here in the first place and they could not stand idly by while he withered away, they said. To which they were surprised, but not completely, to find Thorin merely nodded.

He needs to heal, he needs to rest. Thorin said, the others agreed.

Beorn agreed as well. Gandalf seemed torn, but in the end his desire to see his friend healthy again won out over his fears of what would happen to the dragon, and eventually he had to leave them, promising to be back soon enough.

Bilbo was the hardest to convince, far harder than Fíli and Kíli or little Ori, he didn’t want to burden them, they were on a time limit, he couldn’t be the cause of them having to wait another year to reclaim their home. It didn’t matter that he had lost a little weight and more than a fair share of meals on the way, they were worth it, they were worth every hardship.

In the end, Bilbo was happy they stayed. The company grew and flourished in Beorn’s home, getting to know each other while not on the move, swapping stories and each of them watching as Bilbo regained his strength and how they regained their own.

For they knew what it was like to go hungry, and to start breaking under the pressure and strain that hunger was, and they never wished that fate on anyone.

When the time came to move on, they were closer than they had been, and some bonds are harder to break, and stronger even than the rush of gold. One arrow and felled the dragon Smaug, chief calamity of their age, after a crafty hobbit had distracted him with his sly words and spectacular aim with conkers.

When Erebor had begun rebuilding and the caravans started rolling towards the mountain, the Company of Thorin Oakenshield made sure there was always a place for those who had nothing to eat for themselves, or their children.

And Bilbo Baggins? Well, he added a number of meals to the day that the dwarves had never heard of, but he assured them were very much real and were to be capitalized.

**Author's Note:**

> ...I kind of want tales to be sung about Dragonslayer!Kíli and the Hobbit that distraced a dragon via words and conkers.


End file.
